U.S. boxer Hector 'Macho' Camacho remains on life support

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Relatives of Hector "Macho" Camacho are still hoping for a miracle but planning funeral arrangements for the three-time world boxing champ, Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia said on Friday.

Camacho, 50, remained on life support at the Rio Piedras Medical Center in San Juan. He was declared brain dead on Thursday, two days after he was shot in the face in a drive-by shooting.

The newspaper quoted his former manager, Ismael Leandry, as saying Camacho's family would not remove him from life support before Saturday.

"They won't take him off the machines. God says when he will die," Leandry told the newspaper. "Camacho is a warrior and we believe he is battling to stay alive."

At the same time, the newspaper said the family is planning a funeral in New York, where Camacho grew up, and possibly a public wake in Puerto Rico.

Police were still investigating the shooting. Two gunmen opened fire on Camacho and a friend, Adrian Mojica Moreno, 49, as they sat in a car outside a liquor store in the San Juan suburb of Bayamon, Camacho's birthplace.

Mojica Moreno, the driver of the car, was killed and Camacho was shot in the jaw. The bullet fractured two vertebrae and lodged in his shoulder, damaging the arteries that carried blood to the brain, doctors said.

Police found nine small bags of cocaine in the driver's pockets and one open in the car. No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.

Camacho, a left-handed fighter who grew up in New York's tough Spanish Harlem, had a record of 79-6-3 with 38 knockouts. His three-decade career featured fights with a "who's who" of boxing and a flamboyant style that included entering the ring in an outfit based on the Puerto Rican flag. (Reporting by Reuters in San Juan, editing by Jane Sutton and Sandra Maler)